Bradford has a rich literary history shaped by women writers who made women the centre of their storytelling. From the Brontë sisters whose female protagonists were independent, fearless and revolutionary, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Catherine Earnshaw and Anne Brontë’s Helen Graham, to Times bestselling author Saima Mir, whose lead character Jia Khan of The Khan trilogy dismantles the deeply-rooted patriarchal institution of Bradford’s baradari, women writers from Bradford are gifted in their ability to tell powerful, eye-opening stories about women, offering both nuanced critiques of societal conditions and challenging norms. [...]It was while living in Bradford that I penned by own book, Hijab and Red Lipstick, which was recently released as a second edition. While my book is not set in Bradford, the city certainly nurtured my writing. From long hours spent writing at Waterstones café, whose staff diligently kept me fuelled with coffees and teas, to the advice and support I found at the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing in Haworth, and the opportunities I have had as both an attendee and speaker at Bradford Literature Festival, the city really has a lot to offer for women writers like me. (Yousra Samir Imran)
One of 2026’s most buzzed-about historical novels is heading straight into the heart of old Hollywood glamour with a tinge of darkness.Bestselling author Natasha Lester is set to release her latest, The Chateau on Sunset, on June 2, 2026, and the novel is already being described as one not to miss thanks to its bold premise: a feminist reimagining of Jane Eyre set inside the infamous Chateau Marmont during Hollywood’s Golden Age. (Nina Derwin)
To her credit, Fennell understands that it’s more fun to smash a dollhouse than to construct one meticulously. Her sledgehammer approach to party scenes in her previous films is rivaled by Wuthering Heights’s opening sequence of a public hanging. Though we are supposed to be in the late 18th century, the mood is more medieval. After a few moments of the hanged man’s dying gasps, a Charli xcx song floods the soundtrack (the truly terrifying track “House,” which she recorded with John Cale), and the crowd erupts in a carnal frenzy. People roar, some start fucking, a nun closes her eyes, and parents pull away their children. The scene does not exist in Brontë’s novel, but it’s somehow closest to the monstrous vitality of that world, a place where the dead refuse to die. Too bad that Fennell never gives her characters the chance to live. (Genevieve Yue)
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by Charlotte Bronté. adapted by Polly TealeDirected by Nettie SheridanWith Izzy Boreham, Joseph Bentley, Evie McGuire, Polly Jones, Katie Ford, Steven Adams, Cathy Byrne, Jimmy Schofield.Brighton Little Theatre, Brighton9th-16th May, 2026The attic burns with secrets untold in our 800th Production!In Polly Teale’s bold reimagining, Bertha Mason - the infamous “madwoman in the attic”- steps from the shadows and emerges as the living embodiment of Jane’s suppressed longings and rage. A daring interpretation that reveals the storm beneath Charlotte Brontë’s classic. Dive into Jane’s inner world and unearth the psychological battles between passion and restraint, duty and desire. Arresting and emotionally charged, this adaptation breathes raw, urgent life into one of literature’s most enduring heroines — a Jane Eyre like no other.
Susan Dunne sheds fresh light on the relationship between Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell.Ten years of research have uncovered a wealth of details about the pair's friendship, which lasted from their first meeting in Windermere in 1850 to Charlotte’s death in 1855.The book traces their parallel development from unknown writers to literary giants, and reveals more about the controversy surrounding Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë.Susan says: "Charlotte Brontë’s friendship with the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell is one of the most important literary friendships ever and it led to one of the most controversial and enduring biographies ever written."As a student and fan of both writers, I wanted to know more about the friendship – how did they first hear about each other, what brought them together and what did they think of each other?"It was fascinating to find out about their shared views on areas as varied as national and international events, the position of women in mid-Victorian Britain and more domestic concerns such as child rearing. And then they share a lot of gossip about contemporary famous figures as well as discussing the art of writing and their experiences at the hands of critics."As well as considering them as writers, the book looks at how their domestic lives overlapped and examines the different challenges married and unmarried women faced at the time.Susan adds: "Charlotte took an active interest in the lives of the Gaskell children. She wasn’t by most accounts very maternal but the youngest daughter, Julia, was her favourite."I was also intrigued to find out about Elizabeth’s efforts to bring about Charlotte’s marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, and her professed willingness to abort Charlotte’s unborn child if it would have helped save her life."And then of course there’s all the controversy over The Life of Charlotte Brontë.“Elizabeth Gaskell tends to get a bit of a bad rap amongst Brontë fans, with some biographers accusing her of duplicity by writing about Charlotte to the press in the hope of getting a commission to write the biography, but I’ve come up with some clear evidence that this did not happen." (Alistair Shand)
4K Blu-ray Video and Audio Review:“Wuthering Heights” is a visually stunning film, with its set design and cinematography being as integral to telling the story the way Fennell wanted as the story itself, and this 4K 2160p/HDR10/Dolby Vision transfer delivers her vision in spectacular fashion for home audiences to enjoy. The details, lighting, camera angles, fog and various other changes to the weather throughout the film all come through gloriously in one of the best looking 4K transfers of the year.On the audio side of things we’ve also got a remarkable Dolby Atmos mix that surrounds the viewer both in fantastic sound effects that just bring you into the world, as well as the beautiful original score by Willis, and the perfectly placed original songs by Charli XCX. The dialogue is crisp and clear, front and center, never battling for center stage. An audio mix like this next to a top tier 4K transfer like we’ve received and whether you love “Wuthering Heights” or not, there’s no denying that Warner Bros. has delivered a masterful home release that fans can devour.Special Features:Audio Commentary – If you’re going to want to hear a commentary from anyone involved in this film it’s going to be Fennell, and that’s what we get here. The writer/director dives deep into the creation of the film, her mindset with the story she’s trying to tell, as well as the casting, the crew, the sets, the music…you name it, she likely touches upon it. As a whole this is a track well worth listening to after watching the film first.Threads of Desire – This featurette is just under 7-minutes in length and aptly focuses on the costume design in the film and the importance they play to the story and characters.The Legacy of Love and Madness – This feaurette is five-and-a-half-minutes in length and sees various cast and crew talk about Brontë’s novel, and how for some this was their first time diving into the world. They talk about how this film isn’t an exact adaptation of Wuthering Heights and shouldn’t be viewed as such, which is something I feel many have missed.Building a Fever Dream – This featurette is just over 12-minutes and sees Fennell and Margot Robbie talk about the production, the set, and the unique brand of storytelling in place here that they hope audiences will latch onto. (Brendan Campbell)
Like so many, I spent part of my Valentine’s Day at the theatre, watching Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated (and equally controversial) new film with a friend. Having consumed enough online discourse, I went in with low expectations and the assumption that I wouldn't enjoy it. In the end, my low expectations were somewhat exceeded, and I ultimately gave it a solid 3-star Letterboxd review.So, does Wuthering Heights do justice to the novel it's based on? The short answer: Not exactly. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing it for yourself, nor should it stop you from enjoying it. [...]If we're answering the question of whether Fennell's movie "did justice" to Brontë's Wuthering Heights, then the answer would objectively be no. But if one is asking whether or not the movie is good, then the answer is more murky. It's a visually beautiful film with an easy-to-follow plot and emotional moments (Even a skeptical viewer like me cried at one point).Ultimately, no amount of social media discourse or negative reviews should interfere with whether or not you decide to see a movie, or even whether or not you enjoy it. So whether you're a die-hard Brontë fan or someone unfamiliar with the novel, Wuthering Heights might just be for you. (Amy Guerin)
The two leads have an electric chemistry as the doomed Cathy and her toxic lover Heathcliffe but while it’s stunning to look at, their volatile, cruel and tumultuous relationship ultimately becomes a bit of a slog. (James Wigney)
Tea time has always been a very prominent cultural part of the British era. It finds ample mentions in poems and novels of that time. From Jane Eyre’s lavish parties to Jane Austen’s portrayal of the elite class, it finds a mention there. Items like freshly baked breads, scones, seasonal jams and a variety of tea often formed a part of this set-up. (Subhadrika Sen)
This enduring oversight could be for all of these reasons or a combination of some. Still, I resent the descriptions of Anne by journalists such as Charlotte Cory as the “runt of the literary litter”, and urge readers and Brontë fans to give her work a chance in its own right. (Amy Wilcockson)
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by Deborah LutzW.W. NortonISBN: 978-1-324-03711-8Deborah Lutz compellingly captures Emily Jane Brontë, extraordinary poet and author of the incomparable Wuthering Heights, with deep insight and glorious prose.Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was only twenty-seven-years old when she began work on one of the most important novels in the English language. Two years later in 1847, she completed Wuthering Heights. It took the world almost a century to catch up to Brontë’s masterpiece, and it has taken even longer to know Brontë—an elusive figure, with a ghostly legacy provoked by her early death and the loss (and likely destruction) of almost all her personal papers.Drawing on formerly inaccessible notebooks and manuscripts, This Dark Night constructs a portrait of Brontë, her famous writing sisters Charlotte and Anne, and the effect of their sisters’ and mother’s tragic deaths. In the first full-length biography in over twenty years, renowned scholar Deborah Lutz sketches the days of a woman crafting otherworldly fiction while running her father’s parsonage: writing interweaving with household work, daydreaming, and exploring the rough-hewn outdoors.As she traces the influence of Brontë’s life and work, Lutz follows how Brontë’s fantastical early poems of the night sky, women rulers, and outsiders and rebels grew into the stormy, transcendent Wuthering Heights. Lutz also illuminates the overlooked ways that the legendary writer addressed debates of her time that still resonate today, including questions of gender and sexuality, race and class, and rapid industrialization set against the natural world.From her menagerie of dogs and birds to the beloved moors that Brontë wandered and later emblazoned in her novel, Lutz depicts the passions of an author at odds with convention. Uniting the domestic and the cosmic, This Dark Night plumbs the life and writing of this idiosyncratic woman, dark soul, and monumental genius.
Fine detail and contrast are as dialed-in as expected, with color representation leaving a huge impression due to the production team's careful choice of specific palettes in regards to paint, fabric, decorations, and other items to heighten the mood and tone in dramatic fashion. Framed at its original ratio of 1.85:1, this the kind of atmospheric picture that immediately holds your attention from start to finish and the 4K disc -- triple-layered, of course -- is thankfully encoded at a supportive bit rate, one that varies greatly depending on the scene but never wavers in its precision. Overall, this is a drop-dead gorgeous presentation of "Wuthering Heights" and one that fans will be happy to own. (...)Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during the film and three featurettes below. A Descriptive Audio track is also on board, which I have not listened to but is probably pretty hilarious in spots.
Brandon Schreur: Obviously, this movie is based on such an iconic book that so many people grew up reading either in school or just for fun. I know that you’ve worked with Emerald before, but she comes to you and says that adapting Wuthering Heights into a movie is going to be her next project, and she wants you to do the production design for it. What’s going through your head at that point? Is that an exciting challenge to dive into, or is it more of a ‘Uh, how are we going to pull this off?’ kind of feeling?Suzie Davies: It’s a bit of a combination of both. I literally had that exact feeling — like, I cannot wait to read this. How are we going to do it? And, now, I can’t wait to actually make it. Yeah, it was like that whole roller coaster. I think the joy of working with Emerald for the second time was that we already had a sort of dialogue. We already knew each other.She actually spoke to me before I read her screenplay to let me know what her ambitions and desires were. So, I went in and read it already knowing she wanted me to build everything on a sound stage. She said she just wanted to never leave the studio. Everything we see was going to be on the sound stage.Being able to read her script with that in mind, it meant my first thoughts — which are usually your strongest, but they’d already been defined in that direction. So, off I went. It was one of the best scripts that I’ve ever read, as a production designer. Her stage descriptions; there is nothing better than reading, for instance, the skin room. The description of that skin room was just like, ‘Let me at it! Come on!’ But it was, like, everything. I kept going, ‘Hang on a minute, a doll’s house! Oh, it’s raining in Wuthering Heights!’ It just kept going on and on and on. It was brilliant.Totally. There are so many different scenes or different locations in this movie that I loved. As you said, the skin room really stuck out to me. Seeing that in the theater for the first time, that was just, like, something I haven’t seen before.Yeah, it’s exciting. If we could do Smell-O-Vision or Touch-O-Vision. Because you almost want all the other senses to be involved, especially for things like that. None of us could stop touching that wall. There’s something really — you just want to squeeze into it. It was amazing. [...]Getting into some of the specifics, the design and the look for the titular Wuthering Heights estate, I’m so in love with how it conveys feeling without ever actually having to say anything. Just the way it’s filmed, the way it looks — it’s so oppressive and ominous. Can you talk about the process of figuring out how the estate was going to look and how you went about making it feel so gloomy from the visuals alone?I think we knew that every surface, I wanted it to feel wet, sweating, or dripping with water or some sort of bodily fluid. It just needed to feel alive. Whenever you have surfaces that have reflections on them, I think it will give something uneasy — is it breathing, is it moving, what made it happen? There’s something else that’s happening.That was like, across the board, every surface is going to reflect or be able to take water as well. A little bit to what I alluded to before, because we’re on a sound stage and I had a certain size of stage to work with, everything is sort of built within a circle. So we get the horse and carriage in and out without turning around; it’s a circuit, basically, on the sound stage. Once you start getting some things you need to have, you begin to design outwards from those boundaries. Which, it’s really helpful to have boundaries, otherwise you sort of don’t know where you’re going.We were able to put, like, the tiles on the wall, which are sort of high-glass tiles. That’s a little bit of a nod to what’s really used in that part of the UK. They do build houses with big, brick tiles, but not black shiny ones like we had. But the proportions are right. That was enough of a broad brushstroke to say that we’re making a period drama, but it’s going to be in this weird, heightened version of a 14-year-old’s dream or imagination of what she thought when she read this book. It’s great when you have a writer/director to do things like that; to show the concepts of what we’re doing. We made models, and we had loads of different runs of what that color should be and the size of those tiles. Again, the workshops are all there, so Emerald could come and have a look.When you have a director who has also adapted the screenplay, you get the immediate answer of either ‘Yes, that works,’ or ‘No, that doesn’t.’ That just cuts through everything. You don’t have to phone someone up, wait, and go, ‘What do you mean?’ I just take her to the workshop and go, ‘This is what we’re going to put on the wall, does this work?’Then we had a big discussion about why we’re changing it for white in the gothic arch; at one stage, we were going to do it the other way around. But, actually, the house doesn’t look that dirty until we get later [into the movie] when it gets destroyed a little bit. But that also gives the great opportunity to see red splattered on the wall in that wonderful moment.And bouncing off that, you have Wuthering Heights, but then you have Edgar’s mansion, and it’s so different. Like, that’s a house I would actually want to live in, it feels so alive. How did the process of making that one differ from Wuthering Heights? Did you have to basically start from scratch doing that?Yes and no. Again, the brilliant stage description that comes very early in the description of Thrushcross Grange is actually the doll’s house. I did it the other way around — we built and designed the doll’s house, and then built the life-sized version of the doll’s house rather than the other way around. The doll’s house was slightly out of proportion because we knew we wanted that hand to come in with the model of Margot’s character into the shot. That’s where we started, from that little bit of detail. That made the windows [a certain size], which on a real house would then be [another certain size].What’s great, then, is that all of the characters in Thrushcross Grange, for real, are slightly too small. Because our original is slightly out; it’s a quarter-scale model. Which is a good scale, but it’s slightly off what it should be. So, the ceilings are a little bit taller, and the windows are a little bit bigger. So, once you start on that version, doing it that way, it just gives you that slight unease — like, I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not quite right. That’s the feeling we wanted for the whole film. There’s just something hovering between reality and unreality. (Brandon Schreur)
It’s your second time working with Emerald Fennell and Jacob Elordi (both on Saltburn) and third time working with Margot Robbie (Babylon and Saltburn). Is there anything different in your collaborative experience with them this time around?[...] There were a lot of things from Emerald, like how [Heathcliff] lives in this barn and how he could see [Cathy] brush her hair in the window and how things were related – and then this rock that came through and all these things grew all over the house to take over. How it was suddenly winter seeing her father in misery. It was just more dramatically visualized than normal, which is fine because it’s so different and felt appropriate for this film to become heightened, letting you cry and letting you feel. [...]I listened to the commentary track on the disc and learned that some of the days were sunny outside and you needed to make them rainy and overcast?!“The biggest challenge for me is always weather on films. It’s rarely the way you want it to be, honestly. I could be particular in how i think it should look and I’m disappointed. On Bond [No Time to Die] in Matera [Italy], it was cloudy, which doesn’t at all look as brutal as it does in hard sun, so we actually came back and shot again to get a hard sun there. But that was the only thing that mattered that day was that it looked hard.In this case, we obviously had worked on soundstages first and established scenes. We decided scenes should be foggy and rainy. And then you come to the real world, which we were promised that in March, end of March, in the Moors, it’s gonna be miserable… in a good way. So we come there and it’s sunny and windy. If it’s sunny you can fog it up and make it look miserable, but if it’s windy, the fog disappears. But we did it. That was one of the few tools we had to tame nature was to add fog where we want, like when [Cathy and Heathcliff] walk amongst the rocks. That was important, because he’s finding her there and it should be obscured and not so clear.Same when she finds him returning and he’s invisible in the fog. That’s shot on location. There was no fog. It was sunny that day, but we had so much atmospheric smoke to be able to do that. Our genius special effects department was able to turn on a cue to make him invisible and become visible in a few seconds. It was like everything was in a play – like improvised jazz. It was cool how that eventually worked. On stage, that’s much easier because you can just do what you want.”I’m curious, you had said earlier you love learning. What did you learn that you were able to put into practice on Wuthering Heights?“I guess what I mean is that you learn so much from the people around you, especially intelligent directors that take you on this journey and develop a film together. It’s in all the small details that you learn from a director. It evokes situations that creates challenges that you have to figure things out that you don’t know how to do yet, and then you learn your own work.That happened, for example, on this film. I felt there was a certain amount of theatricality Emerald wanted. It’s sort of like these fantastical devices in the sets, like a rock [juts] out into the kitchen and the house is grown over by these cancerous [tumors] that are weird fabrics. There was always a level for allowance for that. At the same time, we felt that, instead of shooting on a green screen, or build a massive, super expensive Volume, I love the soft drop textiles that you print on and then you can light them for different looks – for a flat look or backlights through the clouds for a dramatic look. And that’s what we did on this film, which I’ve done before and isn’t what I learned.The thing was we were trying to get the sense, in the stage, that it was gonna be very real feeling. We knew it was going to have a stage look, but make it as realistic as we could make it. So we decided to paint the imagery so that it would have dark clouds on the top of the backdrop. On the ceiling, normally, you put white silks to create the skylight. But that bothers you if you shoot these big VistaVision shots indoors and you see the ceiling, it would have to be replaced by the visual effects. So we figured out, with that challenge, I recalled that I had seen gray silks. We did a gray silk that was the same color as the clouds in the photographed backdrop that went seamlessly together on the ceiling so the trans light kept going into the sky. With enough atmosphere, you could not see it wasn’t sky. I learned that the look of that, when you have that big gray sky, it looks so much more realistic than a white silk. So from then on, for every movie now, I’m gonna use that for sky. If you want to have light, it’s still soft, but if you pull out the lights, it doesn’t reflect lights, which would look fake.The beauty of working with interesting people is that you always learn so much. In the directing, it’s interesting to learn how directors work with actors. The actors are so important for the story and the cinematography, for me, is the tool – with the light and the lensing and the closeness or distance from the actor and the composition – that should do similar things that sound and music does with the audio.I think the cinematography should serve the emotions. It could be subtle, but it should rather serve the emotions than the plot. I’d rather feel the right feeling with the characters, if I just see an image, than if I understand what’s going on with the plot. It’s really important to focus on that. I feel like I want to be directed like Emerald’s directing actors. I want her to tell me what she tells the actors, because it’s about those things. That’s how we get the images in our heads. It’s better than coming in with visual images to show. I like to work with her telling me how to feel: like say ‘miserable.’ Well, how does that look in this world? Stuff like that.” (Courtney Howard)
What is your favourite book by a dead author?Wide Sargasso Sea is the book that revived Jean Rhys’s fortunes — brought her back from the dead while she was still alive, as it were — and it’s great, of course.
Thu 7 May, 7:00pmBrontë Parsonage Museum ShopCome along to the museum shop where Emma Conally-Barklem will be giving a live reading of her latest collection of poems The High Flight: 50 Poems Inspired by Emily Brontë's Hawk.Emma Conally-Barklem is an author, poet, yoga teacher and workshop facilitator based in Yorkshire. She has taught yoga for fourteen years both home and away. Her classes are creative, fun and led with kindness offering options for everybody who wishes to practice.She is the author of four collections. Her first collection The Ridings was curated into an exhibition in her hometown, Bradford. Hymns from the Sisters was written after a residency at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Emma won the Black in White Poetry Prize 2024. Her first novel, Yoga Homicide was shortlisted for the 2025 Book Edit Writers’ Prize and a Top 100 choice for The Ascent Novel Prize 2025. She was a core poet for the BBC’s Contains Strong Language Poetry Festival Bradford 2025 and was a guest on Radio 4's 'Front Row' where she talked about the Brontës. She won the First Chapter Award 2025 for her grief work and services to marginalised communities.
Is “Wuthering Heights” a date movie?Unlike Heated Rivalry, this probably won’t make you or your partner blush, but a story about intense obsession might not be the best play for a first date. And for anyone who knows the story, this isn’t exactly a feel-good romcom.Sensual moments are balanced with plenty of decidedly unsexy moments as Fennell explores the visceral nature of love and the gristle behind tough circumstances. Committed couples and partners are probably going to find more resonance with the clandestine romance and soulmate talk.That being said, there’s some heavy material here that risks ending a night with your valentine on something of a downer. Leave some time after for a romantic dinner or drinks to cleanse the palate.Fluids of almost every kind fill Fennell’s framing, from the close-ups of beads of sweat on Elordi’s back to the snail crawling up a window and characters perpetually caught in the rain.ASMR is definitely in the mix, with a soundscape orchestrated to immerse the audience. All of the elements singularly align with Emerald Fennell’s vision, from the strong performances to the dreamlike production design, the sumptuous set decoration and the elaborate costumes.Charli XCX’s original soundtrack gives the period-esque tragedy a contemporary pulse, underscoring all the angst. In a haunted romance where sex and death seem intrinsically linked, “Wuthering Heights” frequently teeters on the edge of being completely over the top without ever actually going off the cliff.Fennell continues to helm visionary films wrestling with obsession and revenge within the context of class and power dynamics. Those themes echo through Promising Young Woman, Saltburn, and now into the Yorkshire moors.Fennell conducts with whip-smart precision, and audiences willing to trust her baton will be rewarded with a bittersweet symphony. (Chad Kennerk)
Of all the roles Molano has played on Alley stages since joining the company, none stands out more than her superlative starring effort in Jane Eyre, by far her biggest role to date. But no matter the role, Artistic Directo Melrose notes she is an utterly transformative actor. (Jessica Goldman)
MāramaThe trailer for Taratoa Stappard’s first feature promises a blend of Jane Eyre and folklore, with a touch of Guillermo del Toro style. In Mārama, the writer-director draws on Gothic horror and Māori culture to summon the ghosts of colonialism. (Weronika de Oliveira)
Tue 5 May, 7:00pmOnline via ZoomThis 5 week course, delivered by Dr Sam Hirst, takes a deep dive into the world of the Brontë Juvenilia, exploring the fantastical worlds they created. Weekly topics are: Creating Worlds: An Introduction to the Juvenilia in context; Branwell's Angrian Imagination; Charlotte's Gothic Africa; Charlotte's 'Farewell to Angria' and Untangling Gondal: Emily and Anne's shared world in poetry. The course will explore what the Brontës' juvenilia reveals about their attitudes towards empire and desire and map how the sisters' writing develops across their juvenile work and lays the groundwork for their later fiction. After reading short stories and poems from the juvenilia, you may see the Brontës in a new light!
‘I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free’ – Emily and Anne Brontë Online Talk
Wed 6 May, 7:00pmOnline via ZoomElizabeth Gaskell’s famous biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, went a considerable way to creating the myth of the famous writer living up on the moors. But what of the image of Charlotte’s two groundbreaking literary sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë? How has our view of these trailblazing writers changed over the years?Emily Brontë’s enduring classic Wuthering Heights makes her the author of one of the finest novels in the English language and shows her to be a woman of great passion. What was she like as a person, and how was she depicted outside the family? Her sister Anne has been overshadowed by both siblings but her debut novel, Agnes Grey, and feminist masterpiece The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are now critically acclaimed. Compared with Charlotte, both sisters left little behind beyond their work, creating a vacuum others have been happy to fill with their own theories, and this has sometimes obscured our understanding further.So, what did Elizabeth Gaskell discover about Emily and Anne in her research? How have opinions on their trailblazing works changed over the years, and how has our image of them changed? Sue Newby, Education Officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, reveals all the answers.The last in the Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell mini-season, in partnership with Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi's R-rated Wuthering Heights dominated pop culture during its theatrical build-up and run in early 2026. Some audiences preemptively criticized the film as a wildly unfaithful adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel. Others waited until after the credits rolled to lambaste the film online. Either way, the movie wasn't exactly warmly received. But despite the initial backlash, Margot Robbie's Wuthering Heights adaptation has taken its new streaming home by storm. Wuthering Heights is now streaming on HBO Max. After less than a day, Wuthering Heights is the number one movie on streaming in the US and across the globe. (Archie Fenn)
3 'Wuthering Heights' (2026)Elordi's first-ever period-like drama...truly memorable. One of the most controversial movies of 2026, Wuthering Heights is an adaptation of the famous Emily Brontë book, directed by Emerald Fennell. This was the second project on which Fennell and Elordi worked together, and the messiest one, surely. Not because of the different casting per se, but, according to fans of the original material, because of the too-much erotic portrayal and grand lack of depth to the book's story.Now, I believe that Elordi and Margot Robbie did an outstanding job in this movie. Despite what critics and the general audience think, Elordi, thanks to his performance in Wuthering Heights, has the potential to be cast as a future Mr. Darcy, if the industry ever considers doing another version of the movie (without counting the Netflix series releasing this fall). Add the romantic value and depth of Elordi's acting...and you've got a great chance of winning an Oscar, just saying! This movie's aesthetic, scenery, and clothing were phenomenal, which added to the beauty of Elordi and Robbie's portrayal. An unforgettable film indeed. (Giulia Campora)
Do you remember the first book you read, or the book that made such an impression on you that you kept returning to it again and again?For me, it was Jane Eyre, the Charlotte Brontë classic that I discovered on our bookshelves at home when I was about 12. Orphaned Jane and the inscrutable Mr. Rochester certainly struck a chord with me and I still have that old copy and pick it up every couple of years. It’s interesting that although I’m totally familiar with the story, I always find something that surprises me: a scene I didn’t remember or a detail of an encounter or relationship that I had skipped over to get to the juicier bits.The story seems to have resonated with filmmakers as well. I’ve lost count of how many versions have made it to the screen, big or small. Move over, Jane Austen. (Margaret Tessman)
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Hurlevent
Une création collective de la Phenomena
d'après le roman et la vie d'Emily Brontë
Mise en scène Maëlle DequiedtDu 5 au 7 mai 2026, 19h30L'Idéal, 19 Rue des Champs, 59200 Tourcoing, FranceCatherine aime Heathcliff, un enfant abandonné et élevé comme son frère. Mais elle épouse un autre homme, riche, plus convenable. Humilié, Heathcliff imagine une terrible vengeance.Les Hauts de Hurlevent est une œuvre brutale, sombre, hantée par la violence sociale, les fantômes et la rage d’exister. Maëlle Dequiedt revisite cette œuvre mythique d’Emily Brontë en rompant avec les clichés romantiques au profit d'un théâtre iconoclaste, à la recherche de l'humanité profonde de ces personnages. Mêlant librement au roman, des poèmes et des éléments de la vie d'Emily Brontë, la metteuse en scène dialogue avec cette autrice aux prises avec la morale de son temps et compose un spectacle très personnel qui pose des questions essentielles : que faire des histoires qui nous ont façonné·es adolescent·es ?Sur scène, les interprètes se confrontent à ce roman-monstre, porté par la musique live de la compositrice et performeuse Nadia Ratsimandresy. Le plateau devient un champ de tensions, où les passions s’incarnent dans la voix, le souffle, les corps, pour mieux révéler ce que cachent les mots : la captivité mais aussi les outils pour s’en libérer.► RENCONTRE AVEC L'ÉQUIPE ARTISTIQUEmercredi 6 mai | à l'issue du spectacle | l'Idéal - Tourcoing
Haworth is a picturesque market town which was once the home of the famous Brontë sisters, a trio of 19th Century authors known for such classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, along with a multitude of classic works with gothic themes and emotional resonance.It’s a lovely town, boasting narrow cobbled streets and a hodgepodge of old-fashioned shops, charming cafes and pubs, and surrounded by rugged moorland. I had a great time simply walking through the centre for the very first time and discovering all it had to offer.I was sent out to check out a restaurant called Haworth Old Post Office, located in the town’s converted old post office – the place where the famous sisters would have sent off their unpublished manuscripts. The post office dates all the way back to 1829, when the first penny post was used. (Samuel Port)
Imagine wandering through the desolate Yorkshire moors of Jane Eyre, or confronting the deadly Count in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's one thing to imagine characters in these settings; it's another thing entirely to imagine yourself in them.Thanks to a new AI tool developed by chatbot program Character.ai, however, you can step into your favourite public domain novels with ease. The platform's latest "Books" feature enables users to literally insert themselves into some of the most beloved works of literature, from Pride and Prejudice to Frankenstein.Not only can you place yourself within the story, you can also embody existing characters, tinker with storylines, switch up settings and even change endings.Put simply, you can rewrite the classics.But should we? Interactive storytelling is nothing new – Netflix has released several "choose your own adventure" films since 2017, and video games have been playing with the concept for decades. These texts exist to be reinterpreted. The same can't necessarily be said for centuries-old novels. (Nell Geraets and Karl Quinn)
When I was 10, I walked into Duncraig Library as I'd done every week of my life thus far. I'd already worked my way through all the Enid Blytons, all the horse books, all the Chalet School series and all the Nancy Drews. The librarian wouldn't let me into the adult section of the library until I was 12. So I had to find something else in the children's section to occupy me. I decided to start reading the classics. Yes, I was a nerdy, bookish 10-year-old.I started with the "A" section, but some other nerdy, bookish 10-year-old must have visited the library that day because there were no Jane Austens left. I continued onto "B", and found a book called Jane Eyre. More than half the front cover featured a large image of Rochester on his rearing horse. In the bottom left-hand corner, taking up only about one-eighth of the cover space, was a woman. Yes, the woman whose name was on the front cover of the book was the smallest thing on that cover. That didn't strike me as particularly odd at the time — feminism hadn't quite found its way to Warwick, where I lived.I took the book home and started to read. Within a couple of chapters, I was lost forever to the magic of Charlotte Bronte's story. In an interview with Emerald Fennell about her Wuthering Heights adaptation, she said that her movie reflected the impression the book made on her when she first read it as a 14-year-old. That resonated with me. Back when I read Jane Eyre, what stayed with me was the so-called madwoman in the attic and Jane's best friend dying of consumption. Mysterious fires in bedrooms, men stabbed and bitten, an entire house burned down by the madwoman. It was only much later that I realised the main character of Jane had left hardly a mark on my consciousness.But when I reread the book as an adult, I couldn't believe that I'd been so seduced by the darkness and that I'd entirely overlooked the best part of the book — its heroine. (...)It was time to find a different era and setting for my next book, meaning I'd have to brainstorm an idea from nothing for the first time in years. (....)What if I reimagined Jane Eyre in some way? Immediately I could see Rochester's gothic Thornfield Hall transformed into the gothic Chateau Marmont. I had my book idea. I'd write The Chateau On Sunset, a reimagining of Jane Eyre, set at Hollywood's infamous Chateau Marmont during its 1950s and 1960s heyday. And I would tackle the sense of dissatisfaction I'd had with Jane's story since rereading it as an adult.What was I dissatisfied about? Well, there are many occasions in the book when Jane looks out at the hills that form a barricade between her and the rest of the world. She longs to cross those hills. She yearns to see the world, to have adventures. On the very first page of Bronte's novel, Jane's reading a book about birds and she imagines what it would be like to travel to the same places those birds do — the Arctic, Siberia. Does she? No. There's just one occasion in the book when she escapes beyond those hills. She runs across the moors and finds herself in a house with a man who's probably even more obsessive than Rochester. She promptly escapes back to Thornfield and her true love, Edward Rochester. It's no spoiler to say that, reader, she marries him. It's a romantically satisfying ending. As a child, I was completely happy with it. But as an adult I wondered — did Jane ever regret not having seen the wider world that she so longed to experience? Was there a way to give Jane Eyre an ending that was both romantically satisfying and personally satisfying?That's what's so wonderful about literary reimaginings. Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist heroines of literature. Who can forget her declaring to Rochester, in an era when the word feminism was foreign to most, that she was his equal? (Read more)
Favorite fictional literary character: Jane Eyre. There’s something powerful about a young woman of little social standing deciding she cares enough about herself to stick by her principles.
Poppy Nash: What are your favourite three movies of all time?JCG: Pride and Prejudice (2005), Jane Eyre (2011) and Marie Antoinette.
And this year’s Wuthering Heights film saw a tourism spike at Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Haworth’s cobbles are well trodden by influencers wandering, wistfully, with a Brontë book. (Emma Clayton)
by Shatha Ghazi Alajmi, Department of English Language and Literature, College of Languages and Translation, Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University, Saudi Arabia.(M.A.Thesis)Arab World English Journal (ID Number: 322) January, 2026: 1-84This study examines the cross-cultural adaptation of classic English novels into mid-twentieth-century Egyptian film, specifically analyzing Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as reinterpreted in Hatha Al-Rajol Ohebboh (1962) and Al-Ghareeb (1956), respectively. This study, rooted in adaptation theory, film criticism, and reception studies, examines the transformation of these literary materials to embody Egyptian cultural values, religious sensibilities, and cinematic norms. This study examines the narrative, thematic, and ideological transformations that transpire in the transition from text to film, utilizing Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation as both a product and a process, Dudley Andrew’s notions of cinematic metamorphosis, and Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model. It also integrates Hans Robert Jauss’s concept of the “horizon of expectations” as a supporting reference for the primary theoretical framework, analyzing how Egyptian audiences interpreted and responded to these adaptations from the 1940s to the 1960s. The study employs meticulous textual and visual study to illustrate how the films diverge from their British origins to express regionally relevant issues, including familial honor, moral decency, and emotional restraint. These adaptations are not simple replicas but rather efforts of cultural adaptation that contextualize Western narratives inside Arab social and moral contexts. The study emphasizes adaptation as a dynamic, dialogic process co-created by filmmakers and audiences through an examination of production and reception. This work enhances global adaptation discourse, especially in non-Western contexts, and promotes increased academic focus on Arab film as a venue for cultural negotiation, reinterpretation, and narrative agency.
So are we drinking the Wuthering Heights (now streaming on HBO Max, in addition to VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) bathwater, or are we scowling at it in disgust? That’s the question of the day, my friends. Hot-button filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s third provocative outing after Saltburn and Promising Young Woman is a version of Emily Bronte’s 1847 all-timer of an English novel, albeit stripped down to bare bones covered in sweaty goosepimples. Fennell famously turned down $150 million from Netflix and took $80 million from Warner Bros. so the film could enjoy theatrical release, and the gamble worked – it was a $250-plus million worldwide hit, and its damp, soupy atmospherics (I’m guessing about $60 million of that budget went towards fog machines) and lush photography look even more stunning on a big screen. Oh, and so do its stars, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, who lick each other up and down more than I remember from the novel. Not that I remember much. It’s been a while. And that’s probably for the better in this case. [...]What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Different Brontë sister, but Cary Fukunaga’s spooky, horror-coded 2011 take on Jane Eyre is highly memroable. And Sophia Coppola is a clear influence – see the many brilliantly styled anachronisms in Marie Antionette.Performance Worth Watching: Of course Elordi and Robbie are magnetic, even in underwritten roles. But what a movie like this needs, and gets, is a weird little wacko supporting character who steals scenes like Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road, and we get one in Oliver’s hilarious, screw-loose characterization of Isabella, whose every display of lovely decoupage inevitably looks like engorged human genitalia. Crafty girl, this one.Sex And Skin: Buckets of it, although we see no bits, butts or boobs.Our Take: So: Are we slurping up Wuthering Heights or not? A little. Not heartily mind you, but Fennell heats up a frothy concoction that’s worth some sips, especially if you’re not a traditionalist potentially upset by significant alterations of the source material. Personally, I care not for authenticity of adaptation, and admire the audacity of Fennell’s interpretation, which indulges sloppy pig slaughter, big oozy snails leaving trails on windows, the slapping-flesh sounds of bread dough being kneaded, a pile of pink hairless pig’s feet that look like dicks, a couple instances of BDSM, a soundtrack heavy with Charli XCX, and the walls of Cathy’s bedroom at the Linton mansion, which are pink with freckles and delicately veiny, modeled after her luminescent skin. Fennell has never been afraid of getting fetishy with her films, but Wuthering Heights takes the cake and smashes it on everybody’s tits. So to speak.This is Fennell feeding Masterpiece Theatre or Merchant-Ivory into the meat grinder. This is no stodgy period piece bursting with repressed yearning. Its throb ‘n’ heave is considerable, even if its horniness is somewhat restrained at times, a few hairs shy of going over the top. Of course, it’s still ridiculous, a story set in a universe where logic is less than nil and passion is all, and narrative and thematic sloppiness is a byproduct most of us can deal with, in the context of the director’s robust and sensual visual aesthetic. (What’s the movie “about”? Death, sex and weather, in the broadest terms.) This is absolutely gorgeous trash, Fennell roping us in with meticulous and rigorously conceptualized eye candy and rubbing our face in egg yolks, pig’s blood and assorted varieties of mucus or mucus-adjacent substances.You likely know the basic what-happens of the Wuthering plot, but not the how, and within that margin Fennell gets playful, gross, lusty and funny. There’s absolutely no way you’ll take a single second of this seriously; it’s sexual obsession transformed into a sort of deranged comedy, intentional or otherwise, and Elordi and Robbie, faced with sketchy and uninspired renderings of their characters, lean heavily into their ability to explode screens with concupiscence. Try as I might, I can’t argue against that.The punkish lack of respect for classical English lit means you won’t likely feel emotionally involved enough to sense the depths of Cathy and Heathcliff’s pain, considering how much thematic barley this movie harvests from skin. Just skin. Skin everywhere – beading up, blushing pink, scarred and bleeding, on faces and bosoms and backs, even the damn walls around this joint. (You might actually wish it went a little farther here in the era of best picture Oscar nominee The Substance.) Wuthering Heights is all blood, sweat and tears, but unlike Saltburn, no semen, surprisingly. Progress? Or regression? Yeah, no. Sure? Maybe. You tell me. Inevitably, the liquids run low, and the film doesn’t end, it just slowly bleeds out, like a hog with its throat slashed. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what Fennell does to the source material. But so fucking what?Our Call: Wuthering Heights, wuthering blights on traditional literature. Approach it like it’s a very expensive soap opera and you’ll have a pretty damn good time. STREAM IT. (John Serba)
Con Cumbres Borrascosas, Emerald Fennell deja de lado la reverencia al texto original para ofrecer una adaptación que responde más a su propia sensibilidad autoral que a la tradición literaria. Es una propuesta arriesgada y, por momentos, irregular, pero también apasionada y visualmente potente. Si en Saltburn la obsesión se expresaba a través del exceso, aquí se canaliza mediante la estilización y la emotividad. El resultado es una versión distinta, provocadora y decididamente contemporánea de un clásico eterno. (Laia Cabuli) (Translation)
Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights has landed a new UK streaming home in time for the Bank Holiday weekend. Whether you're going in for a rewatch or a first watch, it's available to watch right now.Warner Bros has now added Wuthering Heights to HBO Max, but there is an important caveat if you're a subscriber in the UK. The Basic with Ads plan – which is included in the Sky Ultimate subscription or automatically given to existing NOW Entertainment subscribers – doesn't include brand-new Warner Bros movies.You'll need either the Standard with Ads plan (£5.99/month), Standard without ads (£9.99/month) or the 4K-enabled Premium tier (£14.99/month) to be able to watch the movie today, (...) However, HBO Max is not the only way to stream the movie tonight as Wuthering Heights has also now been added to Sky Cinema and NOW (with a Cinema membership). (Joe Anderton)
“Wuthering” is a Northern English term for a strong, roaring wind or a storm-lashed place, which is highly appropriate for Emily Brönte’s only novel – Cathy and Healthcliff’s tempestuous story of passion and revenge. It’s a harder sell for a holiday.That hasn’t stopped ‘Moorcore’ from becoming the latest trend in UK breaks. And what is Moorcore? It's a move-on from the cutesy cottagecore vibe (all roses round the windows, thatched roofs and cats curled by the fire). It’s wild and free. The feeling of standing atop a gritstone edge, a heathery moorland vista stretching to the horizon, tumbling waterfalls, fairy glens, fresh air in your lungs.There’s no better place to channel moorcore than on Haworth Moor – whose wild, heather-strews footpaths were well-traipsed by the Brontës. Two miles from their parsonage, Royds Hall Cottage is marked on maps from 1847, the very year Wuthering Heights published, and it’s likely it was a familiar sight for the sisters on their rambles. As we arrive, the breeze tusseling daffodils along the embankment and a buzzard hovering above, it feels magical. [...]On an energetic five-and-a-half mile loop from the cottage front door, we took in the waterfall at Lumb Beck (detailed in Charlotte’s letters to her friend, Ellen) and the desolate farmhouse at Top Withens – said to be the setting for Cathy and Healthcliff’s home. From there, across the moorland paths we discovered the Fairy Kirk at Ponden Clough (‘Penistone Crags’ in the novel), and beautiful Ponden Hall, which Emily Brontë used as Edgar Linton’s Thrushcross Grange and where her sister Anne set The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.Around Top Withens and the waterfall, there were scores of walkers admiring the famous views but, only a crow-call beyond, we saw barely a soul – just swooping curlews with their strange warbling cries and a roe deer bouncing off into the distance. It’s easy to find both wild inspiration and, afterwards, scones and clotted cream at Ponden Mill.In the other direction, Haworth village was less than an hour’s stroll. It's the focal point of Brontë pilgrimage, so it was busy – yet still so beguiling, with a sense of the sisters at every turn. Visiting on foot meant we could skip the car park and enter the village – just as they would have – from the footpath at the end of Church Street.Their house (now an unmissable museum) is the first you come to on the cobbled street. From the parlour table, the one Emily and her sisters worked at, you can still look out at the graveyard with its overcrowded, flat-lying gravestones. (Octavia Lillywhite)
Before dinner, I would usually mindlessly watch television but instead I lay a cotton cloth on the floor and enjoy an 1897 edition of Jane Eyre lent by a colleague.I have hundreds of books but didn’t realise most paperbacks made after 1900 use adhesives and plastic laminate, unlike the good old days of animal-based glue and wheat starch paste. (Caitlin Cassidy)
In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, who does Jane Eyre marry? (James Walton)
The Everygirl recommends Gothic books to binge, including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The Brontë Sisters UK explores in her latest video What Charlotte Brontë Though Was Worth Reading.
No Coward Soul is a modern reinterpretation of the emotional and philosophical world of Emily Brontë.Blending indie rock, dark alternative, and atmospheric production, the album explores resilience, grief, identity, and quiet defiance.Inspired by 19th-century poetry but rooted in a contemporary sound, this project reimagines the Brontë voice as something immediate, raw, and alive.2 · Nothing Lovely Here - Stanzas - Emily Bronte3 · Still I Remain4 · Cold in the Earth5 ·The Old Stoic6 · I Will Not Bend7 · Shadowed Grave8 · No Coward Soul in Mine9 · I Am Not Yours to Bury
Originally broadcast in 1996, this TV period drama deserves recognition amongst the finest examples within the genre - at least according to enthusiastic fans..Drawing from Anne Brontë's 1848 novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a British production made for the BBC under Mike Barker's direction.Spanning three episodes broadcast in 1996, the series presents the novel's narrative in a manner many devotees consider faithful to the source material. (Emily Malia)
This autumn, a powerful reimagining of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre will be staged at Storyhouse in Chester from November 10 to 21, 2026.Helen Redcliffe, Head of Producing at Storyhouse, said: "One of the key themes of Jane Eyre is personal discovery and development, which feels especially fitting as we celebrate the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award and its commitment to championing the next generation of theatre-makers."At Storyhouse, we are thrilled to be part of this partnership and to support Lily as she takes this exciting step in her career."From the moment we encountered her work, we were struck by her bold, imaginative style and her instinctive understanding of our venues and audiences."Her Jane Eyre promises to be a heightened, deeply theatrical experience, using the very best of storytelling to bring this beloved classic to life — and we are proud to play a part in what we’re certain will be an extraordinary journey for her and a memorable production for our community."Jane Eyre is a co-production between Storyhouse, the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and Rose Theatre Kingston. (...)Lily Dyble, director, said: "What I see at the heart of this story is courage in the face of the unknown."Jane Eyre reminds us of the risk and enormity of love, but also how uncertainty can breed hope as well as fear; that we can choose to fiercely love each other and ourselves, even within chaos, and even when our old lives have been lost to the fire."I’m thrilled to be bringing Jane’s story to audiences across England this autumn, with the support of four wonderful venues and the RTST." (Josh Price)
Però lo Yorkshire della Emily Brontë e delle sue blande cime vince sul Wessex, sui Cotswolds, sul Somerset e Dorset perché è davvero ruvido, gotico e più selvaggio suscitando introflessioni talvolta dilanianti. Così, come non dire dell'ultima versione hot di "Woundering Heights" girata da Emerald Fennel con Jacob Elordi e Margot Robbie (una Cathy troppo adulta rispetto a Heathcliff) e trasformata in un fiaba nera, piena di sangue, sesso e sospironi? Un adattamento sicuramente meno sognato, rispetto alle storiche precedenti, ma pur sempre infarcito di dimore fatiscenti e scorci strazianti. Non solo cuori infranti ma pure danza amorose, macabre o salvifiche e ad alto tasso erotico. Per cui di grande successo anche in quel pubblico giovane che la Brontë manco sapeva chi fosse. (Andrea Battaglini) (Translation)
Wuthering HeightsSky Cinema Premiere/Now, 8pmEmerald Fennell isn’t mucking about with her adaptation of the Emily Brontë classic. As well as ravishing Aussies in the lead roles (Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliffe), we get eye-popping cinematography, songs courtesy of the hyperpop princess Charli XCX, Martin Clunes as Cathy’s cruel alcoholic father and the young Heathcliff played by Owen Cooper. (2026)
Ellen Sayuri Okido Matsumoto, Giovanne Gabriel Ramos André, Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" - UNESPIntercom – Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Comunicação ,48º Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação – Faesa – Vitória – ES, September 2025Este artigo analisa como a racialização do personagem Heathcliff nas adaptações cinematográficas de O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes (1939 e 2011) impacta a recepção e a interpretação da obra literária de Emily Brontë. Dialogando com os estudos de representação (Hall, 2003), outridade (Carneiro, 2005) e necropolítica (Mbembe, 2019), a pesquisa realiza uma análise comparativa entre as duas produções, observando como o apagamento ou a evidência da negritude de Heathcliff se inscreve na linguagem cinematográfica e nas leituras críticas da narrativa original. A pesquisa utiliza metodologia qualitativa de caráter bibliográfico e fílmico, com suporte teórico nas abordagens de adaptação (Stam, 2000; Andrew, 2000).
Fans of period dramas - particularly those inspired by the brilliant Brontë sisters - are in for a real treat, as there's a little-known film being praised as the 'most authentic and real' portrayal of their lives.Available to stream at no charge on BBC iPlayer, this underappreciated treasure has received rave reviews from all corners, with audiences left captivated by how accurate and genuine the narrative and its settings appear.The majority of the film's shooting occurred on location in Haworth, West Yorkshire (where the sisters actually spent their childhood), and a three-storey, wooden life-size recreation of the Brontë Parsonage and its rooms was built with meticulous precision on Penistone Hill in Penistone Country Park, relatively near to the actual building's site.To Walk Invisible initially aired in the UK on BBC One in December 2016 and in the US on PBS as part of the broadcaster's Masterpiece series in March 2017. Since its transmission, the film has received outstanding reviews, though it has remained somewhat of a hidden and underrated treasure. [...]The drama's title derives from a letter that Charlotte Brontë penned to her publisher about an encounter with a clergyman who failed to recognise that she was the renowned Currer Bell.Charlotte believed it served her and her sisters well that they remained unknown, as she expressed in her correspondence: "What author would be without the advantage of being able to walk invisible?" (Parul Sharma)
The Chateau on Sunset by Natasha LesterNatasha Lester returns with another sweeping historical novel, blending Old Hollywood glamour with literary intrigue. Moving between continents and timelines, the story draws inspiration from Jane Eyre while carving out its own identity through strong, determined female characters navigating ambition, secrecy and reinvention. Lester’s strength lies in her ability to balance historical detail with emotional storytelling, and here she builds a world that feels both immersive and accessible. There is enough drama to keep the pages turning, but also a deeper exploration of identity and legacy that lingers long after the story ends. (Emily Darlow)
A new Brontë-relatedd paper.
Megan Serfontein, Agnes Scott College I n England,LURe: Literary Undergraduate Research, Volume 15 (Fall 2025), pp 82-91Catholicism was the predominant religious tradition and the established state church from 597 AD until 1534 when King Henry the VIII established the Church of England. This ushered in a new era of dominant Protestantism, marked by the aggressive conversion of Catholics and the re-education of priests to Protestant Christianity. As a newly Protestant country surrounded by Catholic nations, a nationalistic pride emerged in England connected to Protestantism. By the Victorian era, the anti-Catholicism sentiment in England was less intense, but still a prevalent part of society. Particularly, it was noted “as un-English and idolatrous” (Herringer 1). Therefore, this hatred of Catholics as well as fear of the papacy was spouted through sermons, pamphlets, newspapers, and literature. One such author of anti-Catholic literature was Charlotte Brontë. This paper will explore the anti-Catholic sentiment in her works, particularly focusing on Brontë’s use of the ideological and cultural views of Victorian England, and likely her own, to deepen the understanding of her characters and propel plot development; this ultimately contributes to broader questions concerning religion and moral rigidity in the Victorian era.
Both Emily Brontë and her only novel Wuthering Heights have been called “deranged”, “crazed” or (especially online, in the wake of the recent film) “unhinged”. So it’s a relief to read a biography where she comes across, instead, as more grounded, steady, sane. Deborah Lutz, whose 2015 book The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects made such an impression, anchors her narrative in solid things: the too-short bed Emily squeezed herself into; the pockets she stuffed with paper, pencils and moorland treasures; the laundry she looked after, including stockings with “AB5” sewn into them to indicate they were her sister Anne’s fifth pair. Lutz’s Emily is an eminently practical woman who wrote “while baking, in front of a peat fire perched on a little stool, or while walking” and who “used the tactile keeping of order as a prop and prompt to lose herself in the sublimity of art-making and moor-haunting”.For Lutz, Emily’s writing is also “tactile”. She counts the sampler Emily made at 10 as one of her “earliest extant writings”, and while other scholars have dismissed it as a collection of copied platitudes, Lutz notices that one line Emily stitched, from Proverbs – “Who hath gathered the wind in his fists?” – suggests that maybe she was already thinking about wuthering. She lovingly describes the little books the Brontë children made as “delightful, tiny objects to match their toys and still-small selves, texts holding secretive and insular qualities”. She calls the one-page diaries Emily made with Anne “a new writing practice, one that feels distinctly modern, even avant garde”, as they crammed in descriptions of their cooking, their chatter, their animals, their made-up heroines; stream of consciousness nearly a century before Virginia Woolf.The wilder stories get an airing too, but Lutz doesn’t sensationalise them, or make them the key to everything; she doesn’t seem to see Emily as an impossible riddle, as most biographers have. Did Emily get bitten by a rabid dog and rush into the kitchen, seize an iron from the fire and cauterise the wound herself? Yes, but in doing so she was following the medical advice of the day. Did she cultivate “inwardness”? Yes, but there are no posthumous armchair diagnoses here, more an understanding that a writer managing a busy house might want to get good at preserving her own imaginative space. Did Emily get into some kind of romantic trouble with a working-class man (or woman) at 16? Possibly – but her fine writing about love across class divides could also have been inspired by her parents’ marriage. Did she have an affair with another female teacher in her job at Law Hill school? Maybe, but Lutz is more interested in the idea that Emily might have learned from Anne Lister, the real-life Gentleman Jack who lived nearby, to develop “androgyny and boldness”. I only found it a slight shame that Lutz included the story of Emily beating up her dog Keeper, which I suspect was invented by Charlotte’s first biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell.Lutz has previously written about Victorian mourning ritual, and she is excellent on the intimacy of Emily’s writing about grief. She wonders if watching her mother spend seven months “in a liminal state – almost dead but still with the living” is why Emily’s work teemed with graves, and with “the terrible passion of the gloomy aggrieved still above earth”. She calls Wuthering Heights “one of the greatest haunted-house stories ever written”. She feelingly describes how a vault was built to bury Emily’s mother inside the church, and how Emily saw it reopened for one sister, then another, and then her brother – which makes Heathcliff’s obsessive desire to dig up Catherine’s grave and, later, to merge with her under the earth, seem less bizarre.By locating Emily firmly in what she calls the texture of her everyday, Lutz reads Wuthering Heights not as (per the film) a crazed bodice-ripper, drunk on its own style, but a virtuoso debut novel from an author who had honed her craft since childhood and developed her own idiosyncratic creative process. This biography is, also, a wonderful book for writers on how to write the stories only you can, in snatched pockets of time if you have to, and against impossible odds. Lutz uses Charlotte’s correspondence with potential publishers to try to trace the way Emily wrote and rewrote her novel, speculating that she began with an “inner core of drama” after which “a backstory [was] built out” and then finally a frame was added, “ensnaring the narrative”. This attention to process is a refreshing change from the idea that she simply blurted it on to the page and had no idea what she had done.On the billion dollar question of whether there is a lost second novel, Lutz seems pretty certain Emily was writing one, perhaps inspired by political upheaval in Europe. She even lets us dream that Emily might have stashed it in a wall at her house (as Lister did with her scandalous diary) or buried it on the moors from where – perhaps – it might one day be disinterred.
Life behind the scenes at a world-famous museum will be the focus of a presentation in Keighley.Ann Dinsdale, principal curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, is guest speaker at the next meeting of Keighley and District Local History Society.Anyone is welcome to attend the event, at the civic centre on Wednesday, May 13.The museum, dedicated to the lives and works of the Brontë family, was set up within the parsonage in 1928.It was founded – and continues to be administered – by the Brontë Society, and as the collection grows there are plans for expansion.Ann says: "My talk looks at the fascinating story of how the collection at the Brontë Parsonage Museum came together, and how it continues to grow as exciting new discoveries come to light."I’ll explore the development of the museum, the work that goes on behind the scenes, and some of the film and TV adaptations of the Brontës’ lives and works – which have played an important role in the museum’s history. I will also talk about some of the exciting plans we have for the parsonage and our presence in Haworth."Keighley and District Local History Society committee member, Tim Neal, says: "Around 20 members of the history society visited the parsonage last year and were given an exclusive peek into the inner sanctum of the museum by Ann. We are delighted that she has agreed to come along to talk to a much wider audience at our May meeting."The meeting is being held upstairs in the main hall of the civic centre, in North Street.A lift is available at the front of the building, and inside, for anyone who needs it.Doors open at 7.15pm.The meeting starts at about 7.20pm, and should finish around 8.30pm.Admission is £3.50 – or free for history society members, who also have the option of joining the meeting via Zoom. (Alistair Shand)
Pamela Howorth, 59, bought a building in 2003 on Main Street in Haworth which she originally set up as a lingerie store called Oh La La.By 2020, the business evolved into a vintage shop, rebranding it ‘The Original Bronte Stationery’.The recent Wuthering Heights film produced, written and directed by Emerald Fennel was filmed at Haworth.Ms Howorth told the Yorkshire Post she has since noticed a surge of young people visiting the village.“We’ve noticed it’s a lot busier in Haworth now,” Ms Howorth said.“It’s a different crowd that is coming, it’s a younger audience, the TikTok generation that seems to be coming.“We noticed it last year; a younger audience was [visiting]. It was a big change.”Ms Howorth and a group of businesswomen watched the recent film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.“Haworth has got a lot of strong female business owners - we have a little group called The Main Street Ladies,” she said.“We all went together to Hebden Bridge Picture House to watch [Wuthering Heights] which was really good. We all really enjoyed it.“I mean it’s not true to Wuthering Heights, it’s not representative of the book as such, it’s an interpretation of it but as a film in its own right I thought the cinematography of it, the way it was filmed, it was very powerful. It was very gripping. You could have heard a pin drop [at the cinema]; it was so quiet during the whole film.”Ms Howorth was captivated by the lives of the Bronte sisters since she moved to Haworth.“When I first came to Haworth, I didn’t know very much about the Brontes really, they were things I’ve learned as I’ve gone along,” she said.“How strong they were for women in that time to do what they did, to write the books that they wrote, having to write under the names of men because women weren’t recognised as being able to write things like that and it wasn’t accepted that they did.“It just makes you realise what strong women they must have been. The fact that they all died so young, late 20s and early 30s, they’d not even lived a life.“In that short period of time they lived a long life. They were very well read, they were part of the Romantic Era. I think their father did a good job educating them, a lot more so than people recognise.” (Liana Jacob)
Paired reading draws on the central role that making connections takes in CPM. By reading two books at once throuugh the lens that they are related to each other, a reader draws connections to the real-word influences on the plot. An example of a book pairing is reading Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” alongside Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s “The Madwoman in the Attic.” While the connection between this pairing is rather direct — as Gilbert and Gubar’s book discusses the feminist implications of the character Bertha in “Jane Eyre” — the two books don’t have to be explicitly related. The goal is to critically engage with a piece of fiction by supplementing it with theoretical learning. (Cadence Merker)
